Today's airports, especially those airports with global flight traffic, are experiencing cost pressures from a number of sources. In the past, primary sources of airport revenue included fuel sales and hangar leases. The airline industry has changed, however, and airport operators are constantly looking for additional revenue sources to fund operations and the infrastructure expansion required to meet the increased demand for air travel. Aviation-based revenue may no longer be a consistently reliable source of income for an airport. Global competition among airlines has affected airline revenue, and airlines have looked for ways to pass cost pressures from their reduced revenue to airports. Consequently, airport operators are looking for ways to increase revenue, particularly revenue from non-aviation sources.
At many airports, non-aviation revenue, such as that generated by in-terminal food courts and retail stores, may account for a majority of the airport's income. Marketing and advertising these goods and services has become a strategic priority for an increasingly large group of airport operators as they try to expand and diversify potential revenue sources. The days when airports were defined simply as places for airlines to land, pick up passengers, and take off are long gone. Since an airport's environment can have a significant impact on an air traveler's experience, airports able to enhance that experience are likely to be more successful. This may be particularly true of competing hub system airports. An airport with a solid foundation of non-aviation revenue will be able not only to provide an environment that will attract passengers, but will also be more likely to be operated as a profitable enterprise.
Most non-aviation revenue realized by an airport is generated by sales of goods and/or services within the airport terminal environment. Advertising these goods and services to airport “customers,” the air travelers, members of the public who accompany departing air travelers to an airport and wait for them to arrive, and any others visiting an airport, is essential to effectively communicate the nature and availability of such goods and services. At the present time, the advertising of airport services, as well as non-airport services, is confined primarily to the inside of airport terminal buildings. A wide range of advertising signs and displays may be positioned in interior locations determined to most effectively communicate with the airport population. These locations can range from the interiors of passenger loading bridges to interior gate areas to restrooms to virtually anywhere advertising may be seen and read.
Airport operators have become aware that maximizing advertising exposure to as many potential consumers as possible is necessary to optimize revenue from these goods and services. In addition to placing advertising displays in airport interior spaces, airport exterior spaces are increasingly used to advertise in-terminal retail goods and services to aircraft passengers. An airport exterior advertising system that extends the availability of the advertising displayed during takeoff and landing is described by Webster et al in U.S. Pat. No. 7,752,786. This system employs horizontal ground level billboards located between runway extremities and takeoff/touchdown areas or adjacent to taxiways where the advertisements on the billboards can be viewed by airline passengers while an aircraft is taxiing or waiting on a taxiway. This advertising system would appear to be most effectively viewed by passengers as they look out a window in an airline moving very slowly or waiting on a runway or taxiway. Passengers, however, are likely to find other things to do rather than look out aircraft windows toward the ground under these circumstances. The effectiveness and value of this kind of advertising may not significantly enhance airport revenue.
Locating advertising signs and/or displays on or near outside surfaces of airport terminals has been proposed. Most current airport exterior advertising tends to be located in car parking areas or in areas accessible to the public that are likely to be seen by persons approaching or leaving an airport by cars, buses, or other vehicles. Some limited advertising has been used by airports on parts of airport terminal buildings or related structures on the “airside” part of the terminal that is not accessible to the public to attract the attention of departing and arriving air travelers. Examples include London's Heathrow Airport, where advertising displays have been placed on terminal building exterior wall surfaces. Heathrow and some United States and Canadian airports also have placed advertising displays on the exteriors of passenger loading bridges. Because aircraft presently arrive and park in a perpendicular orientation relative to a terminal building with the aircraft nose end closest to the terminal, advertising displayed on a face of the terminal building is likely to be more visible to the aircraft's cockpit crew than to the passengers. An advertising display on the exterior of a passenger loading bridge will only be seen by passengers in an aircraft that is oriented so that passengers have a clear view of the loading bridge.
The current travel path of arriving and departing aircraft does not provide maximum passenger exposure to airport terminal exterior advertising displays. Aircraft arrive at a terminal gate or loading bridge after traveling in a forward direction with the aircraft nose directed toward the terminal so that the aircraft is essentially perpendicular to the terminal or loading bridge. Departing aircraft are pushed in reverse, again along a path that is essentially perpendicular to the terminal, to a point where the aircraft can start its engines and travel in a forward direction to a taxiway. These orientations of an aircraft at arrival and departure do not enable passengers to easily view exterior airport terminal advertising displays. Consequently, exposure to this advertising is not maximized, and the potential value of the advertising to the providers of the advertised goods and services and to the airport is not optimized.
A need exists, therefore, for a method for increasing and optimizing the value of airport terminal exterior advertising by providing maximum exposure of exterior terminal advertising displays to passengers in aircraft arriving at and departing from terminal areas with exterior advertising displays.